The ingredients, apparently new, were popping up on the labels of dietary supplements marketed for weight loss and workouts. Sometimes the label said DMHA. Sometimes, Aconitum kusnezoffii. Or other, even harder-to-parse names.
But what were they, really?
Dr. Pieter Cohen, the Harvard internist and noted supplement detective, took the case. He and his collaborators purchased and analyzed six supplements marked as containing one of the mystery ingredients. They expected that, however they were listed, all the ingredients would turn out to be a stimulant known as octodrine, which the Food and Drug Administration approved decades ago, in inhaled form, as a treatment for bronchitis, laryngitis, and other conditions.
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